Akamatsu et al.(2006) proposed a new transportation demand management scheme called "tradable bottleneck permits" (TBP), and proved its efficiency properties for a single bottleneck model. This paper explores the properties of a TBP system for general networks. An equilibrium model is first constructed to describe the states under the TBP system. It is proved that equilibrium resource allocation is efficient in the sense that the total transportation cost in a network is minimized. Theoretical relationships between TBP and congestion pricing (CP) are also discussed. It is demonstrated that TBP has definite advantages over CP when demand information is not perfect, whereas both TBP and CP are equivalent for the perfect information case. Finally, it is shown that the "self-financing principle" also holds for the TBP system. Key Words : bottleneck congestion, dynamic traffic assignment, time-space network, tradable permit, ITSRecent advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have led to rapid changes in the "virtual" world represented by the Internet. The increasing capabilities and decreasing cost of ICT is now becoming the impetus for changing the "real" world. The effects of ICT on transportation systems are no exception. The broadly defined "Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)" that exploits ICT has a large potential for dramatically improving efficiency of road transportation systems if the systems are implemented together with appropriate transportation demand management (TDM) schemes.As an example of such futuristic TDM schemes making the most of ICT/ITS, Akamatsu, Sato andNguyen (2006), andAkamatsu (2007a) proposed the "tradable bottleneck permit system." Their proposed scheme is designed for resolving the problem of congestion during the morning rush hour at a single bottleneck, and consists of the following two parts: a) the road manager issues a right that allows a permit holder to pass through the bottleneck at a pre-specified time period ("bottleneck permits"), b) a new trading market is established for bottleneck permits differentiated by a pre-specified time Note here that both parts a) and b) of this scheme are feasible for implementation from a technical point of view, even at the present time. The system for handling part a) may be constructed as an application of the dedicated short range communication (DSRC) system that is used in the current electric toll collection (ETC) system; the trading markets in part b) also can be realized inexpensively by using Internet auction markets. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that implementing this scheme will become technically easier when we take into account the future advances of ICT/ITS.

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This paper presents a transparent approach to the analysis of dynamic user equilibrium and clarifies the properties of a departuretime choice equilibrium of a corridor problem where discrete multiple bottlenecks exist along a freeway. The basis of our approach is the transformation of the formulation of equilibrium conditions in a conventional "Eulerian coordinate system" into one in a "Lagrangian-like coordinate system." This enables us to evaluate dynamic travel times easily, and to achieve a deep understanding of the mathematical structure of the problem, in particular, about the properties of the demand and supply (queuing) sub-models, relations with dynamic system optimal assignment, and differences between the morning and evening rush problems. Building on these foundations, we establish rigorous results on the existence and uniqueness of equilibria.

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